viernes, 28 de febrero de 2014

Geoffrey Cowling was the Consul General in Barcelona for Great Britain during 2002-2005. On February 26, Cowling wrote a letter in the prestigious London economic paper Financial Times in which he defended the right of the Catalans to decide their future, in response to an article written by PP MP Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo. In the letter, he wrote that "Catalonia too is a 'nation' as defined by the estatut, an act passed by the Spanish parliament in 2006. To describe both nations as 'tribes' betrays a colonialist mind. " Cowling also refutes Àlvarez de Toledo's claims that Catalans have distorted historical facts, and after a quick tour through the Spanish Catalan relationship over the last 300 years says, "Catalonia did not voluntarily join Spain, it was brutally conquered."

There’s good propaganda and bad propaganda. Bad propaganda is
generally crude, amateurish Judy Miller “mobile weapons lab-type”
nonsense that figures that people are so stupid they’ll believe anything
that appears in “the paper of record.” Good propaganda, on the other
hand, uses factual, sometimes documented material in a coordinated
campaign with the other major media to cobble-together a narrative that
is credible, but false.

The so called Fed’s transcripts, which were released last week, fall
into the latter category. The transcripts (1,865 pages) reveal the
details of 14 emergency meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee
(FOMC) in 2008, when the financial crisis was at its peak and the Fed
braintrust was deliberating on how best to prevent a full-blown
meltdown. But while the conversations between the members are accurately
recorded, they don’t tell the gist of the story or provide the context
that’s needed to grasp the bigger picture. Instead, they’re used to
portray the members of the Fed as affable, well-meaning bunglers who did
the best they could in ‘very trying circumstances’. While this is
effective propaganda, it’s basically a lie, mainly because it diverts
attention from the Fed’s role in crashing the financial system,
preventing the remedies that were needed from being implemented
(nationalizing the giant Wall Street banks), and coercing Congress into
approving gigantic, economy-killing bailouts which shifted trillions of
dollars to insolvent financial institutions that should have been
euthanized.

President Barack Obama leaves his
podium after addressing the nation on an agreement reached with Iran
that would temporarily freeze Tehran’s nuclear program and lay the
foundation for a more sweeping accord, at the White House in Washington,
November 23, 2013. (Photo: Doug Mills / The New York Times)

Obama administration officials insist “possible military
dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program must be resolved to the
satisfaction of the IAEA to complete a nuclear agreement. But the term
refers to discredited intelligence from suspect sources.

One of the issues Obama administration officials are insisting must
be resolved to the satisfaction of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) before any nuclear agreement may be concluded involves
“possible military dimensions.” That term refers to documents long
discredited by German intelligence but which the United States and the
IAEA have maintained came from a covert Iranian nuclear weapons program.

The London gold fix, the benchmark used by miners,
jewelers and central banks to value the metal, may have been manipulated
for a decade by the banks setting it, researchers say.

Unusual trading patterns around 3 p.m. in London, when the so-called
afternoon fix is set on a private conference call between five of the
biggest gold dealers, are a sign of collusive behavior and should be
investigated, New York University’s Stern School of Business Professor
Rosa Abrantes-Metz and Albert Metz, a managing director at Moody’s
Investors Service, wrote in a draft research paper.

18 September 2014, Edinburgh. Camera teams from all across Europe are
present as Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, is smiling
confidently after having cast his vote, while a few blocks further
Alistair Darling, leader of the Better Together campaign,
is making a last-minute plea for a continued union. For the first time
in the history of the European Union, a region is voting whether to
secede from its country and become a new, independent state.

The media coverage of the events unfolding in Venezuela provides a
troubling example of how the imperial ambitions of the United States can
magnify crises – especially when contrasted with the current political
situation in Haiti.

Both Venezuela and Haiti have been facing anti-government protests,
with the respective oppositions citing poor leadership, corruption,
electoral fraud, and a deteriorating economy as their primary
motivations in calling for change. However, the international media’s
escalation of the Venezuelan crisis and their complete silence when it
comes to Haiti, raises some important questions about the United States’
inconsistency in upholding the values of human rights and democracy.

Haiti has been enduring a political crisis since the highly
controversial election of President Michel Martelly, who received his
mandate from only 16.7% of registered voters,
and has been running the country without a fully functioning government
in order to avoid dealing with constitutionally mandated checks and
balances. For the third year in a row, Martelly has promised to hold elections to fill legislative and local seats without yet following through.

Barcelona (ACN).- The Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia (Diplocat) has launched its first call for applications for ‘Grants for the International Projection of Catalan Civil Organisations’, designed to cover the participation costs of such organisations in international meetings. The grants will be managed by the Federation of Internationally Recognized Catalan Organisations (FOCIR) and applications can be submitted until the 27th of March. The Secretary General of Diplocat, Albert Royo, detailed the call on Wednesday evening. He stressed that activities aimed towards international public opinion could have a significant impact on presenting Catalonia to the world. The President of the FOCIR shared a similar opinion, insisting that the organisations were “carrying the voice of Catalonia abroad”.

The recent capture
in Mexico of Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the
world’s richest, most dangerous and powerful drug lord labeled by U.S.
Government as Public Enemy Number 1. Guzman’s high-profile arrest has
triggered a worldwide news media frenzy as government authorities here
in the U.S. and abroad work together to take down the remaining Mexico’s
Cartel leaders and their henchmen. Responsible for thousands of
drug-related murders and once considered the most elusive wanted outlaw
behind Osama bin Laden, Joaquin Guzman is the biggest story in the drug
world.

But there is another story with links to Guzman’s empire that is
expected to take center stage in trial later this year in Chicago
involving one of Guzman’s top operatives, a trial that will bear
Guzman’s bloody hands in the dope trade, and expose him as one of the
world’s worst turncoats to enter the narcotic game.

Recent allegations circulating
in the global media allege that Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
and other federal agents had forged a secret alliance with top level
Sinaloa drug cartel members by permitting the narco gangsters to traffic
drugs into the U.S., and in a reverse sting, the DEA is accused of
allegedly allowing the dealers to ship U.S. made weapons into Mexico
without facing prosecution. All this work was done on behalf of the U.S.
government to achieve the government’s grand mission to play one cartel
off another to destroy feuding narcotic organizations.

SPECIAL REPORT / Europe abandons hopes of US-style shale gas revolution.
Shale gas has had a “minimal impact” on the US’s manufacturing
industry, and will have even less significance for Europe, a new report
shows.

But in terms of revitalising Europe’s manufacturing sector and economy as a whole, the report’s authors conclude that the shale gas effect would be “negligible”. By 2035, shale gas is estimated to be meeting no more than between 3-10% of EU gas demand.

An unprecedented MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) allowing Israel free access to raw data collected by the NSA, including all U.S. civilian communications, was secretly signed in March 2009 between the NSA and the Israeli intelligence gathering unit 8200, as was revealed earlier this year.

A summary of the MOU was published in the British Guardian, based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden. The agreement gives Israel free access to all of the information gathered by the NSA, with no names or details removed – even those which may involve U.S. citizens. The signing was authorized by President Barack Obama, and the Israeli signatory was the 8200 commander, whose identity was kept secret for security reason.

The terms and activities mentioned in the MOU are a testament to the depth of the cooperation between the Israeli and American intelligence community, despite claims by a top NSA official that “Israel is spying on the U.S.”

Richard Clarke is one of the four White House panelists on NSA
spying, and the former top counter-terror czar in the Clinton and Bush
administrations.

Revelations about NSA monitoring activities over the last
year show the potential for a police state mechanism, according to the
former U.S. cybersecurity czar, but there is still time to avoid the
dire consequences.

***

“[T]hey have created, with the growth of technologies, the potential for a police state.”

***

“Once you give up your rights, you can never get them back. Once you turn on that police state, you can never turn it off.”

Indeed, top American officials have warned for decades of a police state enabled by the NSA.

I am glad he [Clarke] also understands the threat to democracy.

The only reason I recognized that in 2001 is because I worked the
Soviet problem for close to 30 years … and what NSA was doing was
exactly what the Soviet’s tried to do (as well as the Stasi and the
Gestapo/SS).

One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the
Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to
manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of
deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that
story, complete with the relevant documents.

By publishing these stories one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted
some of the key, discrete revelations: the monitoring of YouTube and
Blogger, the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS attacks they
accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of “honey traps” (luring people
into compromising situations using sex) and destructive viruses. But,
here, I want to focus and elaborate on the overarching point revealed by
all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are attempting to
control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing
so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself.

Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2)
to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online
discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To
see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they
boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting
material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else),
fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual
whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative
information” on various forums. Here is one illustrative list of tactics
from the latest GCHQ document we’re publishing today:

Abby Martin talks about journalist Glenn Greenwald's report regarding the intelligence community's use of subversive and manipulative online tactics to destroy the reputations of businesses and individuals.

Fefe: "These drone-on-the-Oberpfalz message
yesterday was also the subject of a little request of the Left Party As
might be expected, the drone has not vanished but the Americans have
intentionally as directed long It turns out namely,.. that
for their drones for a while overflight permission for the air corridor
between Vilseck and Grafenwöhr but sought not have gotten And since
they have then stop sometime says. Fuck it, we'll do it simply, what can
already do large A Abuse? " email? What makes it controversial is that the killer drones are. "

Although the Americans claim that the are unarmed, but even if we
remove them, one can formulate somewhat exaggerated. U.S. Army exercises
in Bavaria with killer drones "targeted killings" of civilian targets,
without asking first " " The Post with all the embedded links: http://blog.fefe.de/?ts=adf1ea5d

Despite being a relatively small country, Israel is the world's sixth largest arms exporter. The industry is one of Tel Aviv's biggest sources of income, but its come under scrutiny recently, with a report revealing that its using the Palestinian territory as a testing ground for new weapons. RT's Paula Slier has the details.

The Obama administration has filed a request with a special court with the hope of convincing judges to give the US National Security Agency permission to keep millions of American phone records for a longer period of time than previously allowed.

The US Department of Justice is known to have been considering such a strategy, which the Wall Street Journal reports will widen the NSA’s database of phone data by not deleting calls older than five years old, the long-held NSA policy.

Now, though, the Justice Department asserts that it needs to keep the records for longer than five years so they can be used as to defend against lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Senator Rand Paul, and others.

Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinian civilians, including children, over the last three years, and with almost complete impunity, according to the latest Amnesty International report.

Some of the killings were unnecessary and willful, which may qualify them as war crimes.

The report called “Trigger-happy: Israel’s use of excessive force in the West Bank” reveals the unnecessary and brutal killings, as well as human rights abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The Palestinians killed by Israelis didn’t present an immediate or direct threat to the soldiers’ lives – in all cases studied by Amnesty since 2011, the human rights group’s website stated. In a few incidents, the killings were apparently willful, which would amount to war crimes.

A massive thank you to everyone who has helped push Brazil's government into action!

Loggers are being expelled at this very moment from the land of the Awá
tribe in Brazil – bringing hope that they will soon be able to live in
their rainforest without fear of the heavily armed invaders.

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Ukraine: A supposedly belonging to the AUC of the local
Russian-speaking population group has taken the regional parliament of
the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the seat of the Council of
Ministers and Russian flags placed on their roofs. Later, the Parliament
of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea has announced a regional
referendum on the political future of the region, according to a
parliamentary statement. "
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Autonomous Republic of Crimea has removed the local government.
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"Extremists in Venezuela and Ukraine are funded from the same source"

Protests in Venezuela and Ukraine have much in common, as the extremists that agitate receive money and support from the same sources, says political analyst Orlando Labrador.

"
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Ukraine: A supposedly belonging to the AUC of the local
Russian-speaking population group has taken the regional parliament of
the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the seat of the Council of
Ministers and Russian flags placed on their roofs. Later, the Parliament
of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea has announced a regional
referendum on the political future of the region, according to a
parliamentary statement. "
onmouseover="this.style.backgroundColor='#ebeff9'"
onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='#fff'">The Parliament of the
Autonomous Republic of Crimea has removed the local government.
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onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='#fff'">http://es.rt.com/vui
"Extremists in Venezuela and Ukraine are funded from the same source"

What is your reaction to this news story? In headlines today,
we report that a new Senate investigation has found the Swiss banking
firm Credit Suisse aided tax evasion by wealthy U.S. clients who have
stashed billions of dollars outside the reach of U.S. tax collectors.

The report accuses Credit Suisse an array of tactics, from creating
offshore shell entities to establishing a branch at Zurich airport where
elite clients used secret elevators operated by remote control. CEO
Brady Dougan blamed the abuses on a small group of bankers at the firm.

All
over the world, journalists and rights groups are protesting the
detainment and silencing of four Al Jazeera staff members in Egypt. Journalism is not a crime. Share this post and join the #FreeAJstaff global day of action. Http://bit.ly/1eyMJ5i

We end today’s show with news that Japan has announced a major push to revive its nuclear energy program, just weeks before the third anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. This comes just a week after it was revealed about 100 tons of highly radioactive water have leaked from one of the hundreds of storage tanks at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Here in the United States, the Obama administration announced last week it approved $6.5 billion in loan guarantees to back construction of the country’s first new nuclear power plant in more than 30 years. This comes as a nuclear waste disposal site is set to reopen in New Mexico following an unexplained leak of radioactive material. We speak to Edwin Lyman and Susan Stranahan, co-authors of the new book, "Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster."

A stunning new report indicates the U.S. Navy knew that sailors from the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan took major radiation hits from the Fukushima atomic power plant after its meltdowns and explosions nearly three years ago.

If true, the revelations cast new light on the $1 billion lawsuit filed by the sailors against Tokyo Electric Power. Many of the sailors are already suffering devastating health impacts,
but are being stonewalled by Tepco and the Navy.The Reagan had joined
several other U.S. ships in Operation Tomodachi (“Friendship”) to aid
victims of the March 11, 2011 quake and tsunami. Photographic evidence
and first-person testimony confirms that on March 12, 2011 the ship was within two miles of Fukushima Dai’ichi as the reactors there began to melt and explode.

In the midst of a snow storm, deck hands were enveloped in a warm
cloud that came with a metallic taste. Sailors testify that the Reagan’s
5,500-member crew was told over the ship’s intercom to avoid drinking
or bathing in desalinized water drawn from a radioactive sea. The huge
carrier quickly ceased its humanitarian efforts and sailed 100 miles out
to sea, where newly published internal Navy communications confirm it
was still taking serious doses of radioactive fallout.

The US and the EU are supporting the formation of a coalition
government integrated by Neo-Nazis which are directly involved in the
repression of the Ukrainian Jewish community.

There are about 200,000 Jews living in Ukraine, most of them in
Kiev. This community is described as “one of the most vibrant Jewish
communities in the world, with dozens of active Jewish organizations and
institutions”. A significant part of this community is made up of
family members of holocaust survivors. “Three million Ukrainians were
murdered by the Nazis during their occupation of Ukraine, including
900,000 Jews.” (indybay.org, January 29, 2014).

Ukrainian Jews were the target of the Third Reich’s
Einsatzgruppen (Task Groups or Deployment Groups) which were supported
by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators (Wikipedia). These “task forces” were paramilitary death squads deployed in occupied territories.

This needs to be updated for 2014 to include all the great films that
have come out in the last couple years, but it's still a great
collection of films you can watch online, if we do say so ourselves.

Spanish Deputy Minister for the EU told Commissioner Reding “what is going on in this country”

CNA

Madrid (ACN).- The Spanish Prime
Minister Mariano Rajoy disclosed that the Spanish Deputy Minister for EU
Affairs, Iñigo Méndez de Vigo had travelled to Barcelona on Sunday “to
talk with” Viviane Reding and tell her “what is going on in this
country”.On Tuesday evening, during the State of the
Nation Debate at the Spanish Parliament, Rajoy explained that Méndez de
Vigo’s trip to Barcelona was decided after the European Commission Vice
President had publicly called on Catalan and Spanish authorities to negotiate “without red-lines” to solve the conflict.
After talking to Reding, Méndez de Vigo took part in the Citizen’s
Dialogue organised in Barcelona on Sunday afternoon, which was part of a
series of talks Commissioners give throughout the EU, directly
answering the questions of citizens and local representatives. During
such an occasion, The European Commissioner for Justice gave the room to
Méndez de Vigo, who emphasised that an independent Catalonia would be
excluded from the EU and said that “only fools” discussed “this fact”.
Besides, Rajoy also stated before the Spanish Parliament that he had
spoken about Catalonia with the President of the European Commission,
José Manuel Durao Barroso, “and many other political leaders”, “because
it is [his] duty as Prime Minister”. Meanwhile, the Spokesperson of the
Catalan Government, Francesc Homs, ironically said that the Spanish
Foreign Affairs Ministry is putting “so much pressure […] for us not to
be received anywhere [to talk about the self-determination claims] that
in the end it opens doors for us, even just out of curiosity”.

Mariano Rajoy stated that Méndez de Vigo had travelled to Barcelona as an answer to Viviane Reding’s petition for dialogue “without red-lines”,
“to tell her […] what is going on in this country”. Rajoy was answering
the intervention of the Spokesperson of Spanish nationalist party UPyD,
Rosa Díez, who said that the European Commission Vice-President had “to
rectify” her request made to Spain and Catalan authorities because “the
law defines the red-lines”.

Díez was “grateful” to the Spanish Prime Minister for
giving a “political and not a legal speech on Catalonia and standing up
against the self-determination vote. She has also “reached out” to
Rajoy to heal Spain whose “entity is getting increasingly weaker”.

The Catalan Government Spokesperson and Minister for
the Presidency denounced that the Spanish Foreign Affairs Ministry
“pressured” other countries to try to prevent members of the Catalan
Executive and academics from “explaining” abroad the self-determination
claims shared by a majority of Catalans. “The Ministry is fully engaged
in such a campaign” he said, “calling universities, academics”. He
ironically added that he was “thankful” for this behaviour, because
“there is so much pressure from the Foreign Affairs [Ministry] for us
not to be received anywhere that in the end it opens doors for us, even
just out of curiosity”.

Besides, Homs explained that the Spanish authorities
“call universities to ask them not to organise events [related to
Catalonia’s self-determination]”. “They call academics and write
reports”, consequently “generating interest among the [international]
media”.

Regarding the trips of the President of the Catalan
Government and other members of the Executive abroad, Homs said it was
too soon to ask for reactions and international support for Catalonia’s
self-determination claims. He insisted that “there is a certain respect
regarding what is arising in Catalonia. It is not yet time to ask for
answers or anything in return. We are at a stage where we simply have to
go explain things and that’s it”.

miércoles, 26 de febrero de 2014

As the Euromaidan protests in the Ukrainian capitol of Kiev
culminated this week, displays of open fascism and neo-Nazi extremism
became too glaring to ignore. Since demonstrators filled the downtown
square to battle Ukrainian riot police and demand the ouster of the
corruption-stained, pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, it has been
filled with far-right streetfighting men pledging to defend their
country’s ethnic purity.

White supremacist banners and Confederate flags were draped inside Kiev’s occupied City Hall, and demonstrators have hoisted
Nazi SS and white power symbols over a toppled memorial to V.I. Lenin.
After Yanukovich fled his palatial estate by helicopter, EuroMaidan
protesters destroyed
a memorial to Ukrainians who died battling German occupation during
World War II. Sieg heil salutes and the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol have
become an increasingly common site in Maidan Square, and neo-Nazi forces
have established “autonomous zones” in and around Kiev.

With the support of Washington, Ukraine’s opposition
“transitional government” headed by the parliament’s speaker Oleksandr
Turchinov has issued an arrest warrant directed against the
democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych, accusing him of
having ordered the “mass murder” of civilians during the bloody riots
and clashes with police forces on Maidan Independence Square.

This “mass murder” for which he is accused bears the fingerprints
of the Right Sector Neo-Nazi party Svoboda, which is supported and
financed through various channels by the US and the EU.

The Maidan riots as well as the riots organized in other parts of the
country were carefully staged with a timeline and specific political
objectives in mind. Civilian casualties were part of this staged agenda,
with a view to accusing president Yanukovych of “mass murder”, thereby
providing a justification for regime change on humanitarian grounds.

Armed with riot shields and clubs, the [Neo-Nazi] group’s
cadres have manned the front lines of the Euromaidan battles this
month, filling the air with their signature chant: “Ukraine above all!”
(See Max Blumental, Is the US backing Neo-Nazis in Ukraine? Alternet, February 25, 2014)

Reports of Bitcoin’s
demise, it would seem, have been greatly exaggerated. Amid accusations
of gross incompetence and the theft of an absurd figure, one of the
world’s largest exchanges was sundered this week. For the most part,
however, Bitcoin was able to recover its market cap, even though some in
the media remained hysterical, prophesying the end of times for the cryptocurrency.

Mere hours after the Japan-based Mt. Goxseemingly vanished
from the Internet, a new exchange was unexpectedly announced.
SecondMarket, an alternative online marketplace currently operating the
world’s largest Bitcoin investment vehicle, declared its intention to
introduce a fully regulated Bitcoin trading hub. The decision to
announce, according to founder and CEO Barry Silbert, was directly influenced by the turmoil surrounding Mt. Gox.

Mt. Gox officially went offline Monday evening following the release of a purported internal document
titled “Crisis Strategy Draft.” The report claimed that 744,408
bitcoins (roughly $383 million based on the price at the time) was
missing due to a “malleability-related theft which went unnoticed for
several years.” CEO Mark Karpeles later confirmed to a FOX Business
reporter that the document was “more or less” legitimate—a draft of
proposals that required attention—but denied it was produced by Mt. Gox
itself.

I remember when video games were about getting Mario to save the princess and, when you were done, the console would leave you the hell alone. The new Xbox one apparently wants to put an end to those days by turning the beloved game console into a 24/7 surveillance device. The Xbox One will bundle the Kinect – a device that captures motion and sound - with every console and its camera and mic will be always on by default. In fact, Xbox One will actually refuse to work if the Kinect is not connected to it. So the camera and mic will work even when the console is turned off. And the camera will even work in the dark. Yup. It will also be able to read your facial expressions and count the people in the room with you (there are also talks of charging Pay-Per-View movies PER PERSON in the room).